Rep. Bachmann: 'Cap-and-Trade' Is Doomed

Even as the Democrats' controversial healthcare overhaul founders in the Senate, another one of President Obama's chief agenda items, climate change, also is floundering. Ultimately, the cap-and-trade plan will be scrapped despite Democrats' all-out efforts to salvage it, says Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.

Bachmann, a staunch opponent of the measure, told Newsmax.TV the proposal is a top priority for Democrats because "this is the revenue raiser that the Democrats are counting on to pay for all their out-of-control spending. Remember, they spent a trillion dollars of taxpayer money on boondoggle projects earlier this year. They need to pay for this and this is their indirect tax so to speak on the middle class that will be used to pay for this out-of-control spending.”

Basically, the cap-and-trade plan would have the government issue emission permits to companies in the quest to reduce greenhouse gases, but it would allow companies that produce more pollution to buy permits from more efficient ones.

See Video: Rep. Michele Bachmann tells where she thinks cap-and-trade and healthcare proposals have gone astray - Click Here Now

Does she think any of the 219 representatives who voted for it read it first?

“It would have been very hard to read because this because this bill came out just a few hours before we were called upon to vote for it," she said. "Just one amendment alone that came out at 3 o’clock in the morning was 300 pages. It would have been physically impossible for any member to actually have read the bill before they voted on it.

"It isn’t that members didn’t want to read it or that they were too stupid or lazy to read the bill. It was physically impossible because remember, President Obama insisted we had to pass this bill. Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi said we had to pass this bill. Time is of the essence.”

Bachmann said it’s now known that the Obama administration withheld information not only from the American people but also from members of Congress who had to vote on it.

CBS news broadcast a story this week explaining that the administration had concluded privately that cap and trade would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, which breaks down to a $1,761-a-year tax hike per family, or a 15 percent increase in personal income taxes.

Asked whether Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Ed Markey, D-Mass., knew how damaging to Americans’ wallets their bill would be, Bachmann responded: “I don’t know if they were personally aware or not. What we do know is that the Obama administration was fully apprised of the tremendous tax increase this would have on the middle class, and this is unconscionable to think that the Department of Treasury had this information, had the memo and withheld this information from the American people.

"We Republicans were trying to sound the alarm on the exorbitant tax increase that this would be with the American people. We were told that we weren’t telling the truth and that we should tap down our remarks. Now we’re finding that we were fully validated and vindicated by seeing that the American people would pay a tremendous increase in taxes and that’s why, I think, this measure is doomed to failure in the United States Senate and when it comes back for a revote in the House,” Bachmann predicted.

Responding to a question about whether some representatives who voted for Waxman-Markey might pay a price in next year’s elections, Bachmann said, "Undoubtedly the American people will make an issue out of this bill. People don’t want to have a new national energy tax. They don’t want the federal government to nationalize energy and take over that industry too. The American people have said enough is enough; we don’t like what you have to sell and I think the Democrats are in for a very rude awakening in November 2010,” Bachmann says.

Will Republicans campaign on that?

“Without a doubt, we will campaign on energy independence and American energy freedom. We have all the energy resources in the United States to be able to bring down the cost of energy here domestically and we will campaign on this as a positive issue.”

Newsmax.TV asked the Minnesota Republican about the three healthcare overhaul bills passed in House committees and the fact that only one has language prohibiting illegal aliens from receiving government-subsidized healthcare benefits. Does she expect that to be an issue during debate on the House floor?

“Undoubtedly this will be an issue and it’s really because President Obama has made this an issue. He looked into the camera; he told members of the United States Congress and the American people that there was nothing in the House bill 3200 that would give subsidized health care to illegal aliens. That was a demonstrably false statement. [Representative] Joe Wilson made his remarks on the House floor.

"Now it’s up to President Obama. He’s on the defensive for the remarks that he made to prove them true. He can’t and so the president is in a very difficult place on the illegal alien issue. The American people have spoken, they do not want taxpayer-subsidized healthcare benefits for illegal aliens.”

Bachmann assailed another element in the overhaul bill that the Senate Finance Committee is considering: an IRS-imposed penalty against people who don't buy health insurance.

“This is not only a fine, this is a tax on the American people," Bachmann said. "I think there are real constitutional issues. This would be the federal government forcing individuals to purchase a product sold by government even despite the fact people may not want to purchase this product. This is a very bad idea. It would be soundly rejected by the American people and I have every reason to believe the Supreme Court would likely also strike this down as an unconstitutional infringement on the American peoples’ liberty.”

See Video: Rep. Michele Bachmann tells where she thinks cap-and-trade and healthcare proposals have gone astray - Click Here Now

Even as the Democrats' controversial healthcare overhaul founders in the Senate, another one of President Obama's chief agenda items, climate change, also is floundering. Ultimately, the cap-and-trade plan will be scrapped despite Democrats' all-out efforts to salvage it,...